TRIGGERnometry - US vs. China is the New Cold War

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00:00:30.000 hello and welcome to trigonometry i'm francis foster i'm constantin kishin and this is the

00:00:40.180 show for you if you're bored with people arguing on the internet over subjects they know nothing

00:00:45.020 about at trigonometry we don't pretend to be the experts we ask the experts as you can see we're

00:00:51.560 on location this week and our brilliant expert guest this week is a newly appointed new york

00:00:56.300 editor of the spectator usa melissa chen welcome to trigonometry hello thank you so well thank you

00:01:02.700 for having us we're actually in your friend's place right now thank you for making the time

00:01:06.880 on your trip to london it is good to have you here for anyone who doesn't know who you are we've had

00:01:11.220 you on our radar for quite some time for to talk to me i caught myself thinking it's a very stalkery

00:01:20.000 thing to say halfway through the thing but i meant for us to talk to you of course on the show

00:01:23.460 for anyone who doesn't know who you are tell us a little bit about who are you how are you where

00:01:28.700 you are what has been the journey that leads you to sit in this chair in front of these cameras

00:01:32.400 um well so i'm originally from singapore born and bred and uh which in and of itself is a bit

00:01:39.260 more unique i think you probably rarely have any guests from singapore um and i made my way to the

00:01:44.880 u.s maybe when i was 17 i always said i came for a education but i stayed for the civil liberties

00:01:50.620 um Singapore is pretty repressive as a as a society and I grew up under conditions where

00:01:56.960 you know I knew what it was like to not be able to speak freely um so I've always been very pro

00:02:02.200 free speech but that having said I mean no no complaints growing up there it was one of the

00:02:06.380 best places to have you know had a childhood a very prosperous little country and kind of

00:02:10.600 interesting on the political spectrum as well not neatly defined as left or right so that also

00:02:14.840 informs my own worldview in politics pretty much um and so i came to the u.s um studied actually i

00:02:21.540 did science so i was a scientist for quite a few years and um then met um an iraqi refugee by the

00:02:29.140 name of faisal and we founded an ngo together we deal with um sort of middle east issues

00:02:34.600 translating texts of the enlightenment uh popular books by stephen pinker sam harris

00:02:40.500 all into arabic and making them digitally available for free for anyone who wants to

00:02:45.440 read them arabic farsi and kurdish and the idea is to challenge um orthodoxy in the middle east

00:02:52.280 challenge censorship and and try to bring in plural ideas right so that's that's what i did

00:02:58.680 and uh recently joined spectator usa because they finally after i mean it was a long time coming it

00:03:05.720 It was found in 1828 and here in the UK and finally went over to the other side in print as well.

00:03:12.820 So you'll be able to read me and all my musings and political, you know, ramblings on Spectator USA.

00:03:23.160 Well, that's actually one of the reasons we're keen to have you on the show, because we have been reading your ramblings and your musings.

00:03:29.340 And you've been quite clear about your views on China.

00:03:33.120 And you're Han Chinese, am I right?

00:03:34.820 I'm half, yes.

00:03:35.640 Yeah. And that's an issue that a lot of our audience have been clamoring for us to start

00:03:41.720 addressing, which is Hong Kong and China more broadly. So let's dip into that. I remember

00:03:47.200 we were talking before we started the show when Donald Trump was running for president and people

00:03:52.100 making fun of him because he was talking about China making it a big issue. But from what you've

00:03:57.680 written, my sense is that you are pretty comfortable that it is the major issue that

00:04:02.620 is confronting the united states and more broadly the western world right now the well the entire

00:04:06.900 world that the china issue is is really kind of the the linchpin issue of our time i think it's

00:04:14.700 it's the new cold war it's it's the new dividing line on on where people stand in terms of what

00:04:21.820 kind of world do we want do we want a pax americana or pax sinica um what world order do we want do

00:04:28.460 Are we going to abandon the liberal world order that was established after World War II?

00:04:32.380 And what's going to take its place?

00:04:34.340 That's really what China represents.

00:04:36.420 And it's the way things are evolving is pretty interesting.

00:04:41.260 Countries are lining up and taking sides in this, right?

00:04:43.940 So Russia, China, there's this new axis, and then there are the new allies.

00:04:50.120 And, you know, the question for our time is, well, which side are the people who live in the free societies like we do?

00:04:56.900 what where are they going to stand and what is the situation like in china at the moment with

00:05:03.020 regards to hong kong well i mean it's so hard to find out what happens in china because it's

00:05:08.280 everything is controlled like state media is the only media around um you don't have you have you

00:05:14.660 know basically facebook instagram all these social media companies are not allowed in china

00:05:18.680 so it's it's unless you know people there and talk to people on the ground it's pretty difficult to

00:05:24.200 get any word out um tell us about the hong kong issue like just for anyone who saw a news report

00:05:31.160 once three weeks ago and or some people are protesting hong kong just break that down for

00:05:36.220 us for anyone who doesn't know anything about it i've been to hong kong a couple of times

00:05:39.680 it's a great place and lovely people but that doesn't necessarily mean i know anything about

00:05:43.880 it and that would be the case for a lot of people as well so hong kong has been for the past four

00:05:48.260 months sort of engulfed in protests um they've they're calling it the pro-democracy protests

00:05:55.320 if you are following on twitter those are the hashtags that are trending um and every weekend

00:06:01.280 almost you know you have throngs i mean really throngs one in at its peak one in seven hong

00:06:07.440 kongers were on the streets um taking to the streets for the most part part peacefully 0.94

00:06:13.240 protesting but they have been violent escalations every now and then but they are disruptive they

00:06:17.700 do disrupt you know train schedules and even sometimes the airport sit-ins um but what they're

00:06:23.700 protesting or what they were what it started out was that it it started out as a protest against

00:06:29.300 an extradition law that hong kong tried to pass carrie lam eventually who's the exec chief executive

00:06:35.440 of hong kong eventually canceled it um because of the protest like several months in it was just

00:06:40.700 getting way too crazy and what that extradition law would have allowed was anyone that basically

00:06:46.420 China wanted, could be extradited from Hong Kong to face trial in China. And the thing about trials

00:06:53.180 in China is that it's pretty much up to the whims of the Chinese Communist Party, the CCP.

00:06:59.620 And, you know, if you're a dissident, if you are a bookseller who has been selling sort of,

00:07:06.480 you know, books that were not sanctioned, you could just be disappeared and end up in mainland

00:07:12.260 China for show trials. That has happened before the extradition law passed. So with it, this now

00:07:17.700 allows this to happen under a very legal framework. So this was a clear violation of the treaty,

00:07:24.660 the joint, you know, the joint treaty signed between Britain and Hong Kong when, in China,

00:07:29.980 when Hong Kong was handed over in 1997, because it was a British colony for so many years along

00:07:35.200 with um and macau is another colony as well so in the end um they canceled the extradition law but

00:07:42.560 but the protest sort of morphed into something a bit bigger became about wanting universal suffrage

00:07:49.340 because it doesn't exist there it became about accountability because the police were actually

00:07:55.380 really brutal to the protesters and so they were demanding for for some accountability for that

00:08:00.440 And I think there are five core demands of the protesters.

00:08:05.580 One of them is actually not about independence.

00:08:09.180 So it's got nothing to do with actual independence.

00:08:11.780 The Chinese state media will call it a separatist movement.

00:08:15.300 It is not because it's not one of the five core demands.

00:08:18.160 In fact, I think the only people that are saying that are people buying into the apologetics of the Chinese Communist Party.

00:08:26.500 and do you think part of the problem is well a lot of the problem is is the fact that until 1997

00:08:33.340 hong kong was part of you know they had freedom essentially they they did and in fact one of the

00:08:40.820 first pieces i i wrote about this was actually for ariel magazine um helen pluckrose was my

00:08:46.460 very gracious editor and a former guest of us yeah exactly and i wrote about how because at the time

00:08:53.440 you know the when the protests first started kind of people were very confused because well the

00:08:58.620 western media was very confused or they didn't seem to know how to address this but the hong 0.93

00:09:02.880 kong protesters were waving the british flag the union jack they were waving the american star

00:09:07.240 spangled banner and they were singing the national anthem and to see you know the former in the

00:09:14.880 inhabitants of a former colony raise a colonial flag was very jarring to woke eyes right of our

00:09:21.380 time so it was it was confusing and i wrote an article about how post-colonial theory um kind of

00:09:29.940 affects how we see the the protesters and and their plight and you know the fact that

00:09:36.580 we can't really process that right now in in modern terms at least in the west western media

00:09:43.360 um and and that if it wasn't for the british legacy there would be nothing to protest about

00:09:50.840 Right. So that is one of the complications of this. I mean, to even talk about maybe one of the things that British rule brought to Hong Kong that was worth holding on to, which is a point that's very difficult to make today because decolonization movement and everything.

00:10:08.200 And that scene is just something that was a very nasty period in human history, and there's no other way to look at it. Zero. But here was a bit of a contradiction that the protesters were holding up a symbol of freedom. And had it not been for British common law brought through colonial rule, that they would not be fighting for the very thing that they are fighting for now.

00:10:33.880 and the interesting thing about you talk about the empire actually one of the great

00:10:37.880 ironies of this whole deep post-colonization all this stuff is that britain actually has a great

00:10:44.480 relationship with its former colonies many of them and people in many of those countries have

00:10:49.860 a tremendous amount of affinity and a sense of loyalty and common purpose and common values

00:10:56.200 with britain right and hong kong is great i have so many i play a lot of basketball i have so many

00:11:01.080 friends from hong kong that they're big fans uh but i i think hong kong and some of the other

00:11:05.880 things you've written about which is the nba which we'll get on to um they're kind of like

00:11:10.700 test cases on the west's willingness to stand up what's right versus stand up for what's comfortable

00:11:18.820 or for what's economically advantageous right right exactly so uh characterized for us the

00:11:26.220 u.s and perhaps the western response to what's been happening in hong kong has have to have the

00:11:30.580 british american government's been strong enough in supporting those people have they supported

00:11:35.520 them at all um i would say that what's interesting about the hong kong issue is that it is one of the

00:11:40.760 rare issues that drew bipartisan support in congress at least lip service right right so you

00:11:45.900 had even senator elizabeth warren coming out and supporting the hong kong protesters and you know

00:11:51.520 so are many people on the right like marco rubio so there is at least consensus verbally but in

00:12:00.040 terms of passing resolutions or supporting the trade war there's a bit of a divide um i think

00:12:07.380 i think the left is definitely um more critical about the trade war whether is it whether it is

00:12:14.280 because it's trump perpetuating it i don't know because it's one of those things where i do

00:12:19.680 remember a time when the democrats were a lot more in favor of protectionist trade policies

00:12:24.860 whereas you see the flip where now the the conservatives are actually very pro-trade war

00:12:31.120 that we need to do this to sort of stem china's power it's going to hurt them more than us this 0.99

00:12:37.120 is an issue of national security and therefore we should prioritize national security over

00:12:42.300 economics over what's going to be comfortable we're going to lose probably you know jobs gdp's

00:12:47.840 economic growth is going to be sluggish because of it but it's a worthwhile trade-off because

00:12:52.780 this is a national security issue so that's where the right stands on the trade war um and of course

00:12:58.580 trump supporters are just all in you know and if you talk to well i have friends that are

00:13:04.460 journalists and some of them talk to farmers up in the midwest um they said that many midwesterners

00:13:10.740 who grow soybeans know that well because of the trade war china's not going to be buying them

00:13:15.380 but they kind of see that as a necessary bullet to bite um which is which is interesting to see

00:13:22.040 that kind of response. And this is a term that I always hear bandied about and people reference it.

00:13:27.620 If you were going to explain it in a very clean, succinct way, what is a trade war and what is that

00:13:32.320 situation between America and China as of this moment? As of this moment? So the trade war is

00:13:38.100 what Trump had implemented was a series of tariffs, some of them incremental, but mostly on

00:13:43.980 agricultural products and and other um united states exports uh into into china um and likewise

00:13:52.540 he also had tariffs on imports into the united states to protect certain industries make it

00:13:59.920 difficult basically for both countries to trade it penalized the theory was that it penalizes china

00:14:05.240 more and therefore because it's going to hurt them more that they would come to the bargaining table

00:14:10.160 um to talk about other things and and you know trump is always he i mean he in fact he's been

00:14:16.160 campaigning um this has been one of his campaign promises that china's been treating us very 1.00

00:14:21.080 unfairly um also in the labor markets you know we need to push back on them it's been unfair trade

00:14:28.060 practices look at the account deficit um so he's been kind of consistent on this actually and the

00:14:33.760 fact that he's kind of made this a central piece right now his of his agenda is very much

00:14:39.380 consistently in line with what he's been saying even when he was campaigning where it is now is

00:14:44.540 that they've kind of agreed not to escalate the the trade war currently so i think the there is

00:14:52.100 an agreement between china and the united states um and last i remember that the tariffs that are

00:14:58.900 still in place to to be enacted in september and november are still in place but for now the trade

00:15:05.260 war scene there seems to be a temporary truce yeah by the time this goes out this could be

00:15:09.740 it's just such a quickly evolving situation yeah and any spark like the nba situation could just

00:15:16.320 make it worse and that happens so quickly well before we get on to the nba uh i have listened

00:15:22.020 to donald trump talk about china quite a bit i've never heard him really say that much about hong

00:15:26.620 kong is that because i've been listening to the wrong thing or is it or is it a big issue in his

00:15:31.400 in his mind? Well, there was one thing that he did say that, you know, was a very positive

00:15:35.860 development for people who are on the Hong Kong side. He said that it would be very bad for China

00:15:41.520 if they took any military action against Hong Kong. So if there were troops rolling in or anything,

00:15:47.200 there was a bit of a warning that it would be bad for China. What that meant, no one knows,

00:15:52.960 but it was a tweet as usual. I'm sure it was well considered. Right. So I think a lot of people are

00:15:59.980 disappointed that he couldn't say anything more but on the other hand i understand that he has to

00:16:04.020 you know consider a lot of jobs i mean i wish he could be far more forceful than he has been

00:16:09.440 um and and sort of pushing for things on the on the hong kong supporter side but at the end of

00:16:16.020 the day hong kong's going to go back to china 2047 officially that one country two systems that's 0.80

00:16:22.980 going to be abolished in 2047 what is really the end game for the people of hong kong i mean

00:16:28.000 it's you know the longer this draws out really it's China's advantage just because of the terms

00:16:33.480 of the treaty and what's going to happen either way so it's it's hard to see what what the goal

00:16:40.220 is there I guess what is highlighted to the world is the reality of what China is correct and China's 0.68

00:16:46.860 huge power which is where we come to the NBA because for anyone who didn't follow this story

00:16:51.000 Daryl Morey who's the general manager of the Houston Rockets made a comment supporting the

00:16:57.260 protesters in hong kong yeah he just tweeted a photograph and the photograph said stand for

00:17:02.040 freedom fight with hong kong right or fight for freedom stand with hong kong and the the nba

00:17:07.080 immediately i don't think they censored him but they certainly made it clear that they didn't

00:17:12.500 support that message they pulled back they apologized to the chinese people yao ming the

00:17:18.200 famous chinese basketball player who used to play for the houston rockets ended his relationship

00:17:22.960 you know you had other players who play for the Houston Rockets now apologizing to China

00:17:27.960 and Steve Kerr who's the coach of the Golden State Warriors talking about how actually America is just

00:17:36.540 as bad as China when asked about crazy stuff yeah and what it showed and what it highlighted is

00:17:42.900 actually the NBA which is a huge sport in America its American fan base is like a tenth of the size

00:17:51.620 of its fan base in china so many american even entertainment industries now are beholden to

00:17:58.400 china that is the power that china now wields over us right and you've written quite a bit about this 0.91

00:18:04.480 right um there are many ways that china's infiltrated um and is able to influence our

00:18:09.880 economic systems even academia it's pretty scary um but uh you know but tell us more about that

00:18:16.080 Well, I mean, the thing was historically, the thinking was that as China, you know, liberalized its economy and introduced market reforms and got more wealthy and we started engaging with trade, in trade with them, that eventually they'll have no choice, especially with the Internet.

00:18:34.040 they're they're going to have to open up you know once new ideas kind of reach their shores and

00:18:40.100 along with rising affluence because of of market reforms that China's just going to allow political

00:18:46.380 freedoms to to creep back in and slowly open the country up that by far was was one of the

00:18:53.700 wrongest bets of our time I mean if we look back probably in the last maybe 20 years that was

00:18:58.580 probably the worst calculation we could have made um not only did it not pan out it it got worse i

00:19:04.420 think china has built a system that is semi-capitalist it's state capitalist for sure

00:19:11.140 but it remained autocratic in almost every other facet of life but now it has technology to to to

00:19:18.860 almost make that you know authoritarianism even more efficient and even more totalitarian because

00:19:26.540 technology is just this great enabler. And now, which is what the NBA issue has been showing and

00:19:32.380 other things like its control of Hollywood, it's exporting that to the United States. I mean,

00:19:37.760 that's the scary part. It's that they're able to influence from afar what people beyond their

00:19:46.700 borders can think, can say. I mean, the fact that they could get Daryl Morey to kind of make this

00:19:55.120 follow-up groveling tweet that oh you know what this is just one perspective out of uh many

00:20:00.800 interpretations of the hong kong event and and that was just such a you know it's just terrible

00:20:05.980 to see because you know where he stands it was pretty clear where he stood before and now this

00:20:12.140 poor guy had to basically backtrack because of business implications to to his team um which

00:20:19.380 were huge i mean they're not insignificant i think every single chinese sponsor pulled out of the

00:20:23.780 houston rockets the cctv canceled the uh their games the broadcast i like how the chinese national

00:20:30.540 broadcasting system is called cctv by the way yeah people have said that yeah um and and tencent

00:20:38.020 which was you know basically in a contract with the nba for 1.5 million dollars over five years

00:20:44.100 to digitally stream the games canceled the screening of the pre-season games and and then

00:20:49.460 you had shoe companies pulling out and it's just it was a whole boycott i mean talk about cancel

00:20:55.360 culture this was the ultimate cancel culture right and and even nike stores in china were

00:21:01.400 pulling nba and rockets merchandise and it's like this is nike you know you have your american

00:21:07.900 company have some i mean for lack of better word balls don't let china neuter the west it's it's 0.96

00:21:15.180 kind of ridiculous well it's easy to hate trump isn't it when you're when you're a woke company 0.73

00:21:20.260 right and exactly so nike's like that but so was the nba to some extent the nba previously had 0.89

00:21:26.780 used the all-star game in in north carolina that was going to be um played in charlotte north

00:21:33.700 carolina to pressure the north carolina government to to sort of do something with the bathroom bills 1.00

00:21:39.340 like to introduce gender neutral bathrooms and the nba has always been in a way i mean to their

00:21:47.820 credit i think um allowed its players to speak up whatever it was politically right so you had

00:21:55.000 players like lebron james um and others like even steph curry who had been critical of the president

00:22:00.320 they never wanted to go to the white house if they won um the championship but they were critical

00:22:05.660 all about the united states for race relations inequality and things like that and they spoke

00:22:10.360 out even the coaches steve well lebron called donald trump a bum right yeah exactly yeah 0.95

00:22:15.640 um well but obama also called kanye a jackass before i remember that

00:22:19.300 yeah but there's more i mean steve kerr has been outspoken on gun control

00:22:24.820 immigration immigration both him and greg popovich have talked about race stuff exactly

00:22:30.400 So the NBA has allowed people to speak, but the moment China pops up, suddenly... 0.99

00:22:37.680 It was not okay, right?

00:22:39.520 And that's the thing, because it cost them nothing to allow woke sort of activism in the league, right?

00:22:48.320 It did not cost them anything.

00:22:50.720 In fact, it might even help.

00:22:52.380 But when it came to China, it actually cost them, and that's where they failed.

00:22:58.140 i mean to the credit of adam silver at least the commissioner he seemed to at least say

00:23:02.120 we're not going to sanction the rockets they're allowed to say whatever they want

00:23:07.200 that's what adam silver said in a press conference however the official apology

00:23:11.860 the official tweet after the nba by the nba themselves their statement was frankly for me

00:23:18.820 left left much to be desired because it was kind of different in chinese and english

00:23:24.580 and the chinese tweet yeah came out a lot more aggressive saying apologizing for hurting the

00:23:30.700 feelings of the chinese people um and said that moray's comments were extremely inappropriate

00:23:36.000 so there was a lot more uh they definitely took a value stand against against what moray said and

00:23:44.720 and then also acknowledged that it hurt the you know feelings of the chinese people and that just

00:23:50.700 reminds me of the kind of sort of landscape we have to navigate here where offense is basically

00:23:57.880 enough for us to kowtow to outrage culture this is outrage culture but the consequences are much

00:24:05.480 bigger well it's the work neither the work movement nor the chinese like freedom of speech

00:24:10.420 do they really can you imagine uh hurting 1.4 billion people's feelings yeah you think we people

00:24:16.620 get upset with us when we're on stage we say something controversial i know it's a type of

00:24:20.840 reach we can only dream but that's the thing that the chinese government does is it's it's that it

00:24:25.800 tries to present the obviously it presents the chinese people as completely monolithic

00:24:30.340 and with control of media of everything they can read and access and entertainment

00:24:36.160 you get something pretty close to that you know you get something pretty close to this

00:24:41.420 complete uniformity of thought complete conformity and if you don't you get sent to a re-education

00:24:46.020 account. Exactly. Yeah. Or you just disappear. Or you just disappear. Yeah. So what is life like

00:24:53.100 for an average citizen in terms of, let's say, living in somewhere like Beijing, Shanghai?

00:24:57.940 What are they allowed to do? And what are they sort of not allowed to do when it comes to things

00:25:03.280 like freedom of speech, expressing your point of view, everyday things? So for starters, I would

00:25:08.500 say that in general, Chinese people and culture is pretty pragmatic. So if you look at Maslow's

00:25:14.760 hierarchy of needs if you have your first few tiers met and met pretty well because of all

00:25:21.480 the affluence in china nothing else really matters um it's materialistic uh you basically

00:25:28.220 are working to to you know i mean look at look at the luxury market it's conspicuous consumption

00:25:34.300 in china you basically in like certain you know small locus of of of baby beijing or shanghai you

00:25:41.440 have countless Louis Vuitton like you know I don't know why a small area needs four Louis Vuitton

00:25:45.800 stores but there it is and and that says something you know about about what people value and chase

00:25:52.420 after and also why the luxury brands actually kowtowed to China a lot Dolce & Gabbana and

00:25:59.580 recently I think it was Versace had to apologize because I think they had they listed cities that

00:26:04.820 they were in or countries that they were in and they listed China and Taiwan and Macau separately

00:26:09.260 and china said excuse me those are all china so get rid of that and they did but life there is is 0.99

00:26:18.020 you know i mean there's a huge middle class and and people are only starting to get used to new

00:26:23.720 money um they eat well they enjoy you know it's a good life i mean a huge disparity by the way

00:26:29.180 between the cities and not cities huge um and that is often overlooked because everyone thinks of

00:26:35.620 China is this future, but there is a huge, you know, 0.86

00:26:38.220 futuristic kind of like beautiful skyscrapers,

00:26:40.520 but there is a huge disparity between the rural and the city folk.

00:26:45.840 But the only thing that you can't do is not criticize the government.

00:26:49.680 Not, you know, there's, it used to be that there were the three Ts.

00:26:54.360 So you couldn't say Tiananmen, you couldn't say Tibet.

00:26:59.040 And the last T was, I can't remember now, Taiwan, sorry.

00:27:02.800 and now of course that the three t's have grown into other things um that they are sensitive

00:27:09.100 for example winnie the pooh cannot be said or referred to because um xi jinping who is now

00:27:16.480 leader for life a ruler of the communist party um somebody had kind of pointed out that he

00:27:22.740 bore a striking resemblance to winnie the pooh so now all references to winnie the pooh

00:27:29.040 on on weibo on wechat any anything in china is now scrubbed which is why if you watch the latest

00:27:37.560 south park episode i i don't want to have i don't want to reveal any spoilers but

00:27:43.140 winnie the pooh features quite a bit yeah and they really went after china they really did yeah 0.99

00:27:49.060 it reminds me of that the dictator in turkmen as i think it's turkmenistan yes he renamed all

00:27:55.440 the months after his mother after his mother named the son after his dad and then he gave each day of

00:28:01.680 the week like a new name just felt like it yeah but you know i mean we joke about him and i kind

00:28:08.420 of listened to you talk about it and i mean what we're talking about essentially is a country that

00:28:13.720 is run by a life-appointed dictator that imprisoners imprisons political dissenters

00:28:20.920 that in many cases harvests their organs for donors we there are some reports of this

00:28:26.880 that is projecting its power through spy networks through cyber warfare yeah through business as

00:28:33.700 we've just talked about around the world it puts uyghurs correct in concentration camps 1.00

00:28:39.400 all of these things are happening and really until about a month ago very few people were

00:28:46.860 talking about correct and i guess my question is is that because doing business with china

00:28:53.180 has been so good for what you might call the globalist elite that it was really well they

00:28:59.980 were fine with that they didn't have a problem until china started becoming a problem as it has 1.00

00:29:03.880 been more recently i think there are a few factors one is i mean china i think xi jinping only got

00:29:09.920 um his term really got extended to eternity only in 2017 so that was a more recent i think china

00:29:16.220 of the congress that gathered in 2017 was kind of the the period where where it woke most people

00:29:23.340 in government up to at least like okay they're remaining on this autocratic path since then

00:29:29.240 they've become more belligerent in terms of territorial disputes um claiming you know

00:29:34.540 islands and and well building areas yeah in the south china sea which has really angered many

00:29:40.380 regional um countries so philippines vietnam singapore are really angry about about what's

00:29:46.880 happening in their corner of the world because well they can directly see china's increasing 1.00

00:29:52.720 ambitions and are very wary of that um and i think since then you know slowly there's been

00:30:00.620 an awakening but it's it was kind of remain in the political realm it wasn't really until i think

00:30:06.800 like you said hong kong that look that many people really started paying attention to

00:30:12.320 all the broader issues that there might be another reason why you know people were hesitant to sort

00:30:19.400 of diss on china i think it was partly a fear of being racist um i you know if had it been um russia

00:30:28.100 doing the same things no no qualms there to criticize russia yes rasophobia big problem

00:30:34.840 Right, right. And it's also, it's easier for Western countries, white countries to be criticizing fellow white countries than it is to be critical about, you know, this is the problem with the rubric of seeing everything through people of color and intersectionality.

00:30:50.760 By the way, are Chinese people people of color?

00:30:54.020 Asian Americans are not now, but I think...

00:30:57.160 It's because they do well.

00:30:59.100 They're honorary white people in some regards, but Chinese very much so. 0.97

00:31:03.920 Right.

00:31:04.840 And by the way, Chinese state media loves to play race card and loves to play victim.

00:31:09.400 Really? Doesn't it?

00:31:10.360 They absolutely play the victimhood culture.

00:31:12.640 So if you go to school in China, you are taught from a young age through their state and forest education about the opium wars, about the hundred year humiliation, about how the West made China sell Macau and Hong Kong.

00:31:29.280 And so that's why returning Hong Kong was such a big FU to the past.

00:31:34.480 So they do play up their, you know, their humiliation at Western powers hands because they want to try to drum up patriotism because once they do that, I mean, think about like if you built like a UMA, a Chinese UMA, which was also a subject of another piece that I wrote for Spectator, where basically it's like a hive mind.

00:31:53.840 all you need to do is just press the button of patriotism and like the chinese zombies will just 1.00

00:31:59.540 rise and just attack and just you know embrace come to the same position and now the government

00:32:05.500 has unilateral um power to basically do what they want and what do you think is going to be the

00:32:12.960 chinese program in the coming years can you just see them wanting to expand their power base

00:32:17.380 yeah and get their tentacles as widely spread as possible yeah and they're going i mean especially

00:32:22.920 through technology they you know with if silicon valley does not act on principle and i'm worried

00:32:29.560 about that it's going to get worse um you we're already worried about censorship on social media

00:32:35.600 platforms but once they're in bed with china or have chinese investment how are they going to act

00:32:41.820 right you know and and i think my biggest worry is actually ai it's china is spending if you look 0.71

00:32:48.240 get in all the areas where china's putting money on and in um ai they're outspending the u.s

00:32:54.680 in terms of investing and developing the technology ai companies and what's going to happen when that

00:33:01.640 technology really becomes ripe is they're going to have first dibs and the power to you know

00:33:08.600 effectively either export their techno surveillance state to to the rest of the world it's interesting

00:33:16.060 to me because we've had Dr. Pippa Malmgren on the show, who's a former advisor to two U.S.

00:33:20.560 presidents, a good friend of ours. We had Jim Reichard on the show recently talking about some

00:33:25.480 of this. The more we talk to people, the more terrifying it is. And the more I kind of look at,

00:33:32.000 you know, Steve Bannon's obviously very controversial figure, but I've listened to a few

00:33:35.300 of his interviews about China and about the need for economic nationalism, about the need to

00:33:41.420 protect america and i'm like well i can see why people are going over to that side of things

00:33:47.960 because it is a really serious threat to our way of life isn't it it is and i think trump has

00:33:54.120 expanded what he calls the national innovation um security base so he's actually starting to

00:34:01.320 expand like the the kinds of companies in which he's considering um you know sort of preventing

00:34:07.120 trade between or dealings between or at least having more scrutiny on companies with that

00:34:13.700 kind of dealings with china um because this is really a rising concern and apart from economic

00:34:21.340 sanctions what else do you have military options i mean as far as that goes it's one of those things

00:34:27.020 that everyone wants to kind of stay out of and so the only choice left is is really economic

00:34:32.780 and china's playing the same game they know that and that's why they're using um think of all the

00:34:38.560 propaganda the way that they've really managed to you know infiltrate hollywood because of

00:34:43.580 just buying out hollywood studios outright um smuggling their their message into movies and

00:34:52.560 because you have buying power you're able to sort of say all right you remember this movie i think

00:34:57.860 it was dr strange love yeah oh yeah and there was a monk it was the character in dr strange love was

00:35:03.020 a tibetan monk uh played by i'm really bad with actresses and and actors but tilda swinton yeah 0.99

00:35:09.980 tilda swinton okay eventually was moved she played him because they couldn't have a tibetan monk in

00:35:16.720 the story because it's one of the three t's right you're not allowed to talk about tibet and and

00:35:22.440 that's just a sensitive issue so her character was written in and kind of changed modified to

00:35:28.040 appease chinese censors this has happened so many times i mean i don't know if there's like a website

00:35:33.120 cataloging all the ways in which hollywood has count out to china but there should be there

00:35:37.500 should be a website cataloging every single company from delta airlines to kwanis airlines

00:35:42.900 and marriott hotels who fired people or you know capitulated in the same way because the effect is

00:35:50.100 i mean it's growing like the people that are just you know being um sort of victims of of this kind

00:35:57.940 of really it's chinese political correctness it's it's you know this is our orthodoxy if you do not

00:36:04.760 conform it's well you're going to pay for it somehow and there's been quite a few notable

00:36:11.280 examples quite famous examples of chinese celebrities who have disappeared for months on

00:36:17.160 end exactly and in particular there was one actress i can't remember her name but she was 0.97

00:36:21.160 she was in quite a few hollywood films and she just vanished right right and i had a friend of

00:36:25.960 mine who was miss world canada um her name is anastasia lynn she's of chinese descent and she 0.87

00:36:32.760 became very critical of the chinese government she actually was one of the major activists sort

00:36:39.040 of bringing attention to the organ harvesting issue and also the treatment of the falun gong

00:36:44.400 at the hands of the Chinese government,

00:36:48.700 the Miss World competition was slated 0.96

00:36:51.100 to have taken place in Beijing.

00:36:53.340 And because it was there, she couldn't go.

00:36:55.840 They actually canceled her passport.

00:36:57.700 They banned her from the country.

00:36:59.200 So she couldn't even compete in her own pageant. 1.00

00:37:01.380 And the worst part was they started going after her family.

00:37:04.480 So that's what, you know,

00:37:08.320 if you look at autocratic regimes around the world,

00:37:10.560 Turkey, Erdogan, China, CCP,

00:37:13.260 that's exactly what they do i mean say what you want about the west one of the things we don't do

00:37:18.560 is is this like we'll go after your family if if you were a dissident so for example edward snowden

00:37:25.220 his family's not affected his family's not disappeared and kidnapped and tried and and

00:37:31.620 harmed or or hit their livelihoods destroyed and they're not jailed he's responsible for his actions

00:37:37.340 only and it ends there right individuals but that's not the case they in in china they use this

00:37:44.780 you know if you're if you're a member of the chinese diaspora chances are you're family there

00:37:48.480 lucky i don't so i can say what i want but i i couldn't if i had you know one or two relatives

00:37:55.000 that were living in china they would absolutely be gone just based on three articles i had written

00:38:00.740 so far oh it it's scary it's absolutely scary stuff uh so what what do you think the west

00:38:09.100 and the united states particularly needs to do uh in response to this what can the west do now

00:38:14.600 i think i mean for i i actually was a huge supporter of the trade war um as we need to

00:38:23.720 make china feel the pain economically i know it's going to cause us pain too but it's one of those

00:38:30.660 things where if we don't use that i don't know what else the other thing is businesses right so

00:38:35.600 not just the government but really businesses need to be more aware of this and and take

00:38:41.120 responsibility for for standing on values not surrendering those to profit motives um there

00:38:50.280 are other trading partners that we can i know you won't have access to the chinese market but

00:38:54.040 i don't think it's worth it i don't think the end result is going to be worth it when all of us are

00:39:00.000 sitting in gulags yeah it's i i don't know what price these people are willing to pay or maybe

00:39:05.740 they're just trying to kick the can down the road to the next generation to deal with

00:39:09.000 but seeing how china runs its own country if you know that that's going to be what's in store for 0.72

00:39:17.740 the whole world do we want to go there and will we ever accept you know could we have a boycott

00:39:26.120 divestment kind of system from china something like that you know but this needs to be talked

00:39:31.740 about and and not kowtowing especially to their you know what they're doing with like trying to

00:39:40.060 force people like moray to to cancel tweets and to change their minds what south park did by the

00:39:46.660 way brilliant we need more of that um in one episode i think more people were educated about

00:39:52.340 Chinese influence in Hollywood, Chinese influence everywhere, even the Uyghurs, the plight of the

00:39:57.600 Uyghurs were actually featured in a South Park cartoon. And we need more people in the entertainment 1.00

00:40:05.180 industry to kind of tell these stories, you know, sound the warning bells, and assemble,

00:40:12.820 I don't know, an alliance of people that just do not want to live under a world order that China 0.95

00:40:17.660 controls. I was reading an article recently saying that actually our impression of China

00:40:22.800 as being this financial giant isn't strictly true. And there's real significant weaknesses

00:40:28.120 in their economy. I mean, is that true? And are they actually grinding to a halt economically?

00:40:34.940 Yeah, numbers are hard to trust from an authoritarian country like China, right?

00:40:39.180 They fudge things. And also, they're able to use their currency to sort of manipulate how

00:40:45.500 things look. I would say the other thing that that I read recently, which sort of supports

00:40:51.620 your theory, is that China's a severely aging population. And so by 2033, the number of people

00:40:59.280 that are in a certain working age range in the United States is already going to outpace the

00:41:04.840 number in China. And so therefore, we don't really have that much to worry about because their

00:41:09.380 economy isn't growing or is going to it's not the economic juggernaut that we we thought it was

00:41:15.660 um i've heard about that too yeah there's a lot of there's a lot of people who i host the economics

00:41:21.120 and comedy festival every year there's a lot of people who come there anything funny about

00:41:24.540 economics if you're prepared to laugh at the world ending then yeah um you should be a comedy

00:41:32.220 reviewer you would try to hear into everyone's heart is there anything funny about economics

00:41:37.420 the dismal science i don't know yeah yeah well she can be a guardian reviewer who doesn't find

00:41:42.380 anything funny at all just the brian logan of course but anyway a lot of people there were

00:41:47.840 saying essentially what china has done is they've allowed they've created essentially a fake 0.84

00:41:53.620 amount of money within china which they've then used to create massive capacity over capacity of

00:42:00.520 steel production and other things which they then export around the world and as a result of that

00:42:05.880 businesses go out of business elsewhere around the place and then they end up being the monopoly

00:42:10.560 in that particular field so coming back to this whole idea of economic nationalism it's really

00:42:17.060 uh it seems like china has been unapologetically waging an economic war right on the west and 0.93

00:42:24.780 we've been like oh no free trade is great you know as soon as they get all you know they get their

00:42:29.040 car and whatever they'll suddenly chill out and become all democratic and what we've seen in the

00:42:34.040 last couple of years it's just absolutely that is not happening i will say that free trade you know

00:42:39.320 if it's free trade um china wins if it's fair trade the united states wins that's exactly

00:42:45.140 donald trump's message ironically isn't it ironically yeah are you a trump supporter if

00:42:49.560 you don't mind me asking um i did not like it when he got into office i absolutely find his

00:42:54.720 personality troubling repulsive for me personally but i don't i never i never really support

00:43:03.780 candidates or like i don't support things that are like just all right i'm pro hillary or i'm

00:43:09.840 pro trump because what if they did something that you agreed with that you know what if trump was

00:43:14.760 good on say advancing the cause of lgbt equality then you're gonna because you were anti-trump now

00:43:20.960 you have to oppose that which we do see that a lot i'd love to see that tweets that's exactly how

00:43:26.920 to be tribal right so i i've always gone by there are things that trump has done i like there are

00:43:33.100 Things that I absolutely do not like, especially right now with what he's doing with Kurds and pulling out the military. 1.00

00:43:39.580 Do not like that, but especially abandoning our allies that helped us to fight ISIS.

00:43:44.860 But on China, he's been actually pretty good.

00:43:47.380 And I cannot imagine any other president being as strong on China as he has been rhetorically and also just in terms of policy.

00:43:57.420 I really like him to say more about Hong Kong and do more, but I'm not sure what that is.

00:44:02.760 And if you can't propose a solution, then clearly all the smart people in the White House, you know, are putting their brains together to figure this out.

00:44:10.000 And who knows?

00:44:11.960 And what do you make of this argument that, I mean, and I say this about Russia all the time, the one advantage of a dictatorial system is you have time on your side.

00:44:20.600 So, yeah, they can.

00:44:21.700 First of all, as you'll probably tell us better than we know, China is going to be funding election campaigns in the United States.

00:44:30.280 For sure.

00:44:30.780 Right.

00:44:31.180 and they can just wait for this president to go and then they find someone who's weaker right

00:44:37.540 uh to to cave it to cave to their demands right and if you think of the ongoing impeachment trial

00:44:43.100 i i think that will end up china's celebrating right they're actually going to be really happy

00:44:48.180 about about trump leaving office um because at the end of the day china's a you know is a very

00:44:54.300 it's steeped in honor culture there's this notion in in chinese culture about saving face

00:44:59.800 and trump has no shame and he really does not allow china to save face he he speaks ill of it

00:45:08.780 he he basically really rankles china exactly where it hurts the most um and because he doesn't

00:45:16.920 play by the rules and he's just abrasive um so he really annoys china on a level that's almost 0.99

00:45:24.220 visceral culturally and you know the question for foreign policy experts is is that a good thing 0.94

00:45:31.980 you know does China behave better when we're nicer to them that's but over the years it's

00:45:38.420 proven that that's not the case we've we've been nice to them we've traded with them we allowed

00:45:42.900 them into the WTO they didn't play nice they never did so what's you know maybe it's time for

00:45:49.740 different sort of tactics I think that's what Trump brings to the table at least in China

00:45:54.140 specifically and you talked earlier about an axis uh and the allies coming back the new cold war

00:46:02.180 i guess the the universal constant during the cold war is that both parties kind of knew that

00:46:08.200 the soviet union was yeah an adversary right is that where we need to get to do you feel with

00:46:13.400 china i i think so um and i think you know one of the most striking things that that to me at least

00:46:21.220 was when the UN was in session

00:46:24.200 and they wanted to criticize

00:46:26.460 what was going on in Xinjiang,

00:46:29.240 where the Uyghurs were being imprisoned.

00:46:31.540 And you look at all the countries

00:46:33.380 that did not sign the rebuke against China.

00:46:39.100 It was majority Muslim countries.

00:46:42.560 Pakistan did not sign it.

00:46:44.220 Many of the Gulf states did not sign it.

00:46:46.020 And the people that were the most vocal

00:46:48.620 about the mistreatment of weaker muslims were new zealand australia the united united kingdom

00:46:56.260 united states you know the evil west and and somehow the narrative that that they are the

00:47:02.380 ones who are islamophobic you know and and somehow the majority of muslim countries even turkey and

00:47:09.740 the uyghurs are of turkic descent did not stand up for them i mean this is like what are we living 1.00

00:47:16.380 in this upside down world right now in a way and you can see how china because of the belt and road 0.99

00:47:22.460 initiative has many countries basically by the balls yeah because of the sheer amount of investment

00:47:29.400 they have in in their countries i mean just today or in the last two days president xi jinping was

00:47:36.560 actually in nepal because he you know i think it was a 500 million dollar investment in nepal

00:47:42.280 and and this is a country that's you know where the the Tibet is there and Dalai Lama got excised

00:47:49.120 and you see the welcome that they gave him and he gave a press conference saying that if Hong

00:47:54.960 if you know if Hong Kong continues to happen that there will be uh crushed bodies and bones he said

00:48:02.220 that in Nepal and the warm welcome that they gave him is pretty much related to the investment that

00:48:09.500 he was bringing to this country and and with the belt and road initiative investments in africa

00:48:16.680 now even south america that they're expanding to who knows whose influence who knows whose

00:48:23.720 loyalty the chinese could buy it's scary and that's why the west needs to make a stand 0.99

00:48:30.920 it's funny that you bring up the idea of racism and stuff like that because

00:48:34.180 as someone who's from russia i know this i have a lot of friends from china and hong kong

00:48:38.000 like we talk about the west being racist and whatever you want to see what happens when

00:48:42.960 russia runs the world you want to see what happens when china runs the world exactly 0.99

00:48:46.300 you want to compare those two i'm pretty comfortable with british racism thank you

00:48:50.920 very much that level is fine by me do you know what i'm saying it's what peter bogosian was

00:48:54.400 saying about scales right i think yesterday in one of his talks he talked about okay so you want

00:48:59.640 to talk about the patriarchy where is say saudi arabia because we want to qualify what you mean

00:49:06.900 by why we live in this, you know, in these times.

00:49:11.100 So, I mean, as we are aware of, you know,

00:49:14.480 all these woke antics here,

00:49:17.400 I think a sense of proportionality is in order.

00:49:21.300 There is cancel culture, outrage culture,

00:49:23.860 and all these, and patriarchy and rape culture 0.99

00:49:26.020 on a very different scale elsewhere.

00:49:27.800 And we lose proportionality when we are focused

00:49:31.840 on issues here that, by comparison,

00:49:36.900 are just not as severe.

00:49:39.740 Well, I'm guessing rape culture in South Sudan 0.98

00:49:42.160 is a lot worse than an American college campus.

00:49:44.380 Right, but not to say it doesn't exist.

00:49:46.040 No, it was.

00:49:46.520 You should always have to say that.

00:49:48.120 I understand.

00:49:48.980 Yeah.

00:49:49.300 So Jim Rickards, a previous interviewee of ours,

00:49:52.280 actually said that a lot of American companies

00:49:54.780 are starting to withdraw from China.

00:49:56.880 They're going to different countries.

00:49:59.100 Is that the way to deal with this?

00:50:01.180 To go, okay, if you're not going to play ball,

00:50:03.460 we're going to withdraw our support.

00:50:05.200 Yes, absolutely.

00:50:06.900 Go to Singapore, go to Indonesia. 0.98

00:50:09.560 There are a lot of other Asian democracies near China that have the rule of law, that

00:50:15.500 enforce intellectual property rights, that play fair.

00:50:20.080 Do that, you know.

00:50:21.320 The issue, obviously, is that then they won't have access to the Chinese market.

00:50:25.240 So the willingness to do that is probably very low if you're going to be, you know,

00:50:30.060 if you have fiduciary responsibilities to your shareholders.

00:50:32.700 so I hope that that's what they do but I can't see that being across the board it's just too

00:50:39.140 lucrative well on that happy note um Melissa the last question we always ask is what is the one

00:50:45.340 thing that we aren't talking about as a society that we ought to be talking about democracy and

00:50:50.620 whether or not authoritarians actually have an advantage because they are in power longer so

00:50:55.400 Thomas Hobbes Leviathan and how that plays and how that contrasts with systems that we have that we

00:51:02.280 assume are good systems liberal democracy right this is kind of the struggle of our time um

00:51:09.020 obviously i grew up in singapore and we've had one party in power since independence in 1965

00:51:14.320 and the country went from third world to first world in my own lifetime

00:51:18.680 it's it's almost nation building at its best and it was done by having this longevity of having

00:51:29.080 if there was a tumultuous system in which the parties were changing and

00:51:33.400 it's unlikely that could have been possible and so one of the things we don't talk about is

00:51:39.300 perhaps you know what are the merits of these two systems i mean we talk about an impending clash

00:51:45.460 this new clash of civilizations world orders well what did they get right and can we design systems

00:51:53.260 even as we cherish you know our liberalism and our democracy here that can at least give us some

00:52:00.180 of that what do you mean oh can you give me an example well um so for example is is the system

00:52:08.660 that we have in congress where especially now exacerbated by the media cycle where you basically

00:52:13.620 have to campaign every two years it seems that that cannot be good for that's why our potholes

00:52:19.700 are not fixed that's why our airports suck you know one of the things i definitely agreed with

00:52:23.320 trump was that he said that um la guardia and new york airports were like third world countries

00:52:28.260 airports i mean and then you go to places like bangkok and they've got this sprawling

00:52:33.040 you know glass beautiful airports around the world um some when i first immigrated to the

00:52:39.080 united states it felt like a bit of a downgrade i was like this feels like their world country

00:52:43.560 in many respects um and with with long-term planning you can really do things like urban

00:52:50.660 planning land use you know regulation that that are just far more they're farsighted they they

00:52:57.280 assume that people are actually going to still be there and and they're going to be there in 20 years

00:53:02.920 and and they're going to be able to judge and select for for the better ideas in a way that

00:53:09.080 just we aren't so are there systems policies that can mimic that but still retain our political

00:53:16.100 freedoms and still retain our right to free speech which i think is so so so important

00:53:21.060 and cannot be compromised on well thank you very much for coming on the show melissa uh we'll put

00:53:26.620 melissa's twitter and all the other details in the video and audio descriptions thanks for coming on

00:53:31.300 thank you thank you guys thank you we will see you guys in a week from now take care see you next week

00:53:39.080 you know how superheroes always show up right when you need them that's what the connecticut

00:53:54.440 children's doctors are like at the cohen pediatric emergency center at norwalk hospital they're from

00:53:59.240 the only health system in the state that's 100 for kids the rooms here are bright there's a giant

00:54:05.240 turtle on the wall, and you might even see a child life specialist too. They're the ones who help kids

00:54:10.120 feel calm. So yeah, let's hope you'll never have to visit, but if you do, they'll be ready. Norwalk

00:54:16.480 Hospital is joining Northwell for a new era in your care.

TRIGGERnometry - November 03, 2019

US vs. China is the New Cold War

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